Singam (film series)

Durai Singam (Suriya), is the honest police sub inspector of Nallur, assisted by his bumbling colleague Erimalai (Vivek). His family business is provision stores and Duraisingam wants to join it, but he joined police due to his father's wishes. He resolves most of the problems in his village with non-violence and mutual counselling. He uses force only when the situation demands it, thereby gaining much reputation and love from the villagers. Mahalingam (Nassar) is an industrialist in Chennai and a friend of Singam's father (Radha Ravi). He comes to the village with his beautiful daughter Kavya (Anushka Shetty). Eventually Singam and Kavya fall in love with each other. Everything seems to be smooth-running until Chennai-based Mayil Vaaganam (Prakash Raj), a big-time extortionist with shady mafia dealings who blackmails people by complaining to the Income Tax Department, is required to travel to Nallur to sign a conditional bail. He instead, sends one of his allies to do the formalities, much to the anger and rage of Singam who demands Mayil sign the bail in person. Humiliated, Mayil reaches Nallur but is unable to take any revenge on Singam fearing the immense love and devotion of the entire village towards Singam. Using his political contacts, he gets Singam transferred to Chennai to teach him a lesson. The next part of the movie revolved how Duraisingam overtake problem given by Mail Vaaganam

Picking up the storyline from where Singam ended, Duraisingam (Suriya) has gone undercover after meeting the Home Minister and is working as an NCC officer in a school in Thoothukudi. The only people who know about this operation are the Chief Minister and Home Minister apart from himself. Sathya (Hansika Motwani) is a student who falls for Duraisingam though he is waiting to marry Kavya (Anushka Shetty), his love interest from the previous film. Susai (Santhanam), a local who works in the same school shows Duraisingam parts of Thoothukudi and also tells him about the rouge elements dominating the area helping him in his surveillance. He requests the Home Minister to transfer Erimalai (Vivek) and another cop for assisting him. Sathya's moves are frequently repulsed by Duraisingam who learns that Sathya is the niece of Thangaraj (Rahman). Bhai (Mukesh Rishi) and Thangaraj, are two criminals who control the area. Bhai and Thangaraj have connections with an international gangster and drug lord Danny (Danny Sapani). Though they are partners in their smuggling business, they conceal their partnership to the outside world and pretend like arch rivals when they are out in the public. How Duraisingam overcomes the criminals, brings down their empire and finally unites with Kavya forms the crux of the story.

The film starts with tremble in Andhra Pradesh assembly where long pending murder case of city commissioner Ramakrishna (Jayaprakash) is being discussed where home minister K. Satyanarayana (Sarath Babu) proposes to bring DCP Durai Singam (Suriya) from Tamil Nadu police to solve the long pending case. Initially being attacked by Madhusudhana Reddy's (Sharat Saxena) men at railway station at arrival Durai Singam bashes them out and joins the Visakhapatnam police force under CBI pretending to be casual and not serious about the murder case Durai Singam secretly investigates the case from all aspects. Meanwhile, Durai Singam is being followed by Vidhya (Shruti Haasan) whom is a journalist from Andhra Pradesh tracking Durai Singam in disguise as student applied for IPS exams. Durai Singam initially says divorced his wife Kavya (Anushka Shetty), but secretly contacts her. Later, after suspicion of Subba Rao (Robo Shankar) it is told to be play to avoid Kavya from attacks from suspects of murder case. But, finally finding Reddy is behind the murder in series of investigation decides to wipe out goondas in Vispakhapatnam along with arresting Police officers involved in murder of commissioner. After, tracking a suspect he come across to know illegal dumping of Bio-waste and E-Waste from Australia by Vittal Prasad (Thakur Anoop Singh) a wealthy politician and businessman from Australia and son of central minster Ram Prasad (Suman) who works as master mind behind dumping of Wates from Australia in Vishakhapatnam by help of Reddy and his staff Rajeev Krishna (Kamalesh). When the commissioner tried to expose this to media he was brutally killed by Reddy and his subordinates. This is proved by witness from commissioner's driver Mallaya (Jeeva Ravi) and school teacher (Joe Malluri) who lost his granddaughter in toxic smoke caused by burning wastes from Australia in nearby dumpyard. When Durai Singam attempts to arrest Reddy and Vittal Prasad with help the witness and evidence collected. But, Reddy's men kills the school teacher and warns Durai Singam that he destroy his whole family from Australia if he further investigates the case. Vittal tries to escape through plane but Durai Singam stops him and takes him to Talakona forest and kills him there.

Shortly after the release of Si3, Suriya confirmed that he and Hari would return for a fourth film in the series, but "say, after five years".[3]

The first installment of the series, centers on the fictional incidents. Narasimha is a fearless, honest inspector in Rajolu. Friction between Purushottam, a dreaded gangster, and Narasimha leads to the latter being transferred to Vizag, where Purushottam rules the roost. Singam was released on 28 May 2010 (worldwide) and gained positive reviews.It earned ₹90 crore worldwide [4] against a budget of ₹15 crore,[2] becoming the fifth highest grossing film in Indian history (2010).

After the success of Singam Hari and Suriya Re-unite once again for sequel. The film was titled as Singam 2 and also second installment in this series. The plot focused on Duraisingam, an undercover police officer, works in a school in Tamil Nadu and tries to put an end to the criminal activities of Bhai and Thangaraj who rule the area. Singam II released in about 1500 screens worldwide, one of the largest releases for a Tamil film.[5] The film released in a record 151 screens in Kerala[6] and 63 screens in USA.[7] The film's Telugu version was distributed by K. E. Gnanavel Raja's Studio Green. It received positive reviews upon release. Critics particularly praised the performances of Suriya, Hansika Motwani and Anushka Shetty. The film grossed approximately ₹1.22 billion (US$16 million) worldwide from all its versions with a lifetime distributor's share of ₹670 million (US$8.8 million).[8][9] However, Forbes stated that the film made ₹1.36 billion in its lifetime.

A sequel, Si3, was commissioned after the success of the previous film and was also directed by Hari, with both Suriya and Anushka reprising their roles and Shruti Hassan in a cameo role. The film focused on a case A police chief is tasked with solving the murder case of the police commissioner. When he finds out that a powerful gangster is responsible for it, he decides to end the latter's tyrannical reign. It was released on 9 February 2017[10] to positive reviews from both critics and audiences; some stated that "Durai Singam strikes again! Suriya and Hari don't disappoint you in this Singam franchise".[11] Proving to be similarly successful to the first entry in the series, the film became another profitable addition to the franchise, having earned ₹110 crore.[12] worldwide from a budget of ₹65 crore. And becoming the fifth highest-grossing film of 2017.[13]

Shortly after the release of Si3, Suriya confirmed that he and Hari would return for a fourth film in the series, but "say, after five years".[3]

The franchise has been notable for its profit, with Singam[14] and its follow-up having earned a combined profit of ₹325 crore, according to IBtimes.[15]